Mr Moto: Four Complete Novels

Mr. Moto #1, 3, 4, & 6

by John P. Marquand

Your Turn Mr. Moto (1935)

Think Fast, Mr. Moto (1937)

Mr. Moto Is So Sorry (1938)

Right You Are, Mr. Moto (1957)

661 pages, Hardcover

First published December 12, 1988

About the author

Pulitzer Prize for Novel in 1938 for The Late George Apley

John Phillips Marquand (November 10, 1893 – July 16, 1960) was an American writer. Originally best known for his Mr. Moto spy stories, he achieved popular success and critical respect for his satirical novels, winning a Pulitzer Prize for The Late George Apley in 1938. One of his abiding themes was the confining nature of life in America's upper class and among those who aspired to join it. Marquand treated those whose lives were bound by these unwritten codes with a characteristic mix of respect and satire.

By the mid-1930s he was a prolific and successful writer of fiction for slick magazines like the Saturday Evening Post. Some of these short stories were of an historical nature as had been Marquand's first two novels (The Unspeakable Gentleman and The Black Cargo). These would later be characterized by Marquand as “costume fiction”, of which he stated that an author “can only approximate (his characters) provided he has been steeped in the (relevant) tradition”. Marquand had abandoned “costume fiction” by the mid-1930s.

In the late-1930s, Marquand began producing a series of novels on the dilemmas of class, most centered on New England. The first of these, The Late George Apley (1937), a satire of Boston's upper class, won the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1938. Other Marquand novels exploring New England and class themes include Wickford Point (1939), H.M. Pulham, Esquire (1941), and Point of No Return (1949). The last is especially notable for its satirical portrayal of Harvard anthropologist W. Lloyd Warner, whose Yankee City study attempted (and in Marquand's view, dismally failed) to describe and analyze the manners and mores of Marquand's Newburyport

Reviews

[Mark Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book back in 2006 because I had always wanted to read the "Mr. Moto" books. I read the first story "Your Turn, Mr. Moto" and enjoyed it but along came many other books and this volume got moved to the bottom of the stack. However, herald the advent of the eBook and I picked up all the Moto stories in various formats and found them much easier (and lighter) to read using my eReader.

Mr Moto I suppose is not to everyone's tastes. The title character is seldom on stage while some guileless American and his introduced love interest fumble and bumble their way through whatever circumstances fate and/or their own ineptitude has forced them - until Mr. Moto, the off-stage puppet master, savages their skins, saves the day, solves the mystery,and usually dispatches the "baddies" while at the same time serving the interests of his homeland, Japan.

Mr. Moto is polite, a nationalist and very deadly - he is willing to kill our current hero in "Last Laugh, Mr. Moto" until he realizes his usefulness to his, Mr. Moto's, current mission. Mr Moto is dismissed, underestimated or ignored only at people's peril.

Okay, the stories are formalistic but well written, very entertaining and I enjoy them a lot. I like that Mr. Moto is a Japan spy and his goal is to always serve his nation's interests - and he always accomplishes that mission; luckily for the current story's protagonist Moto's interests and plans favorably coincide with the hero's personal survival.

Mr. Moto out Bonds Bond, is more ruthless, objective and impersonal than Helm (is late to the dramatic escape because he had to stop and kill a couple of people who are inconvenient to his plans and/or mission). However, there is really no slam-bang pulp stuff here, the stories were all written for the "slicks" (the "Saturday Evening Post" actually ) and reflect the sensibilities of the era and of the supposed readership. However, still great fun. I really like them! They are all "very nice".

The four Mr. Moto Stories in this Omnibus are:
Your Turn, Mr. Moto (AKA "No Hero"
Think Fast, Mr. Moto
Mr. Moto Is So Sorry
Right You Are, Mr. Moto (AKA "Stopover: Tokyo")

You should also hunt down and read the other two stories in the series:
Thank You, Mr. Moto
Last Laugh, Mr. Moto (AKA "Mercator Island")

[Rick · Rating 2 out of 5]

MR. MOTO: FOUR COMPLETE NOVELS is at best beach reading – many of the characters are stereotypes, the plots are mainly unconvincing, and I question some, at least, of the historical background.

That being said, I have liked John P. Marquand since I first read THE LATE GEORGE APLEY as a teenager. Many of his other novels, although not as good as APLEY, are also interesting bits of culture history and are worth reading if one has the time and inclination.

I should also add that the Mr. Moto novels, in which Moto is a Japanese spy, were quite popular in the 30s and 40s, and many of them were made into movies starring Peter Lorre.